


Lex Talionis

by Pantheris



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms, Lost in Space (TV 2018)
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28214952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pantheris/pseuds/Pantheris
Summary: ONI never learns - and this time, their penchant for arrogantly meddling with things they shouldn't could have dire consequences for humanity, as an "experiment" with non-slipspace FTL threatens to rouse a threat far more advanced than the Covenant and more implacable than the Flood.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Lex Talionis - "The Law of Retaliation"

_**June 2545, Erebus-VII, ONI facility "Armitage"** _

Jeanette's heart pounded wildly in her chest as she inched through yet another narrow maintenance passage - more of a maintenance _crawlspace_ , really - keenly aware of exactly how little separated her from the ONI operatives hunting her through the facility. She had to be quiet, and that meant not scraping up against walls or interior structures - and that was harder than it looked.

She _had_ to be close to the exterior walls, which meant she was close to getting out of this place and...

_..."And'" what, exactly? Where are you going to go? Who are you going to turn to? Kurt abandoned you, he's not going to help you, and getting offworld is going to be next to impossible..._

Taking a deep breath, she sidled past another mess of piping and cables.

Yes, it was going to be next to impossible, but she would tackle that problem when she got to it. First, she had to extricate herself from this situation, and _that_ was proving hard enough.

She just kept pressing on, sidling through the narrow spaces and occasionally pausing to press an ear to the wall, listening for any sounds that might clue her in to where she was. Mostly, all she heard was silence, or distant, muffled voices. Every now and then, there were heavy footsteps and the crackling of radios, and those were the times she stopped to hold absolutely still, waiting for the noise to recede into the distance once more.

But not once did she hear anything - _idling vehicles, weather, any sounds that she would only expect to hear near the outdoors_ \- that might indicate a nearby escape route.

In fact, she felt like she was going in circles. Which, considering the facility's sprawling layout, seemed entirely too likely.

Jeanette was just starting to entertain the notion that she was going to have to leave the maintenance passageways when a new sound reached her - wildly dissonant electronic screeching that cut easily through the thin walls and sent a shiver down her spine. Against her better judgment, she continued towards the noise, and noted that it grew more complex as she drew closer, the shrill shriek from before layered with a lower-pitched warble and an even lower-still bellowing that sounded like a heavily-modulated _roar_ of fury.

That didn't sound like any alien or animal she'd ever encountered

She knew she should just keep going. She didn't need to stop here. Indulging her natural curiosity could get her killed, or _worse_ \- recaptured.

But there was something about the sound that almost _compelled_ her to investigate. So she carefully felt her way along the wall as she followed the source of the cacophony until it sounded like it was just on the other side of the barrier - and now she could hear voices, too, as well as a crackling electric sound.

The smell of hot metal and ozone wafted into the passage from a floor-level crawlspace that branched off from the narrow corridor, and she carefully maneuvered herself into the cramped, claustrophobic confines, carefully inching forward on her belly. The space was only barely wide enough for her to wiggle into, and it forced her to be even more mindful about her movements than she had previously been; she just focused on keeping her breathing even as she pulled herself close to a floor-level vent cover and peered through it.

Much to her frustration, she could see little through the narrow grate. But she could _hear_ much more clearly.

"-think it's time to call it and take a break," one voice was saying, frustration evident in their tone. "It's clearly not interested in cooperating, I think we need to brainstorm a new approach."

"I keep saying we should just scramble it like we did the first one."

"Yeah, I'm inclined to agree, but the xeno division of Section Three wants to hold off on that. Something about using it only as a last resort, not wanting to damage the thing before we figure out what makes it tick or whatever."

 _Section Three._ The name raised Jeanette's hackles and turned her blood to ice. Everything in this facility - every piece of equipment, every _project_ \- had Section Three's fingerprints all over it.

Including _her_.

The voices drew nearer, and she instinctively froze in place, watching as three pairs of polished boots marched past.

"Well, if the fucking xenos don't get into its head before the first one goes offline, we're screwed." There was the sound of a door swishing open, then, "that engine is useless without-"

The door hissed shut, cutting off the rest of the sentence; Jeanette just held her position for several long moments, straining to hear anything else. There was nothing, except a persistent mechanical growling that echoed in the sudden silence. 

_What is IN there?_

Well, there was only one way to find out...

Taking a deep breath, she pushed one armored shoulder up against the grate and gave it a gentle push; it creaked and bowed, but didn't quite budge. A second, more forceful push, however, popped it neatly out of its frame, and it dropped to the floor with a dull clang.

She froze again, waiting to see if anyone would come to investigate, but after ten painfully long seconds of quiet - _even the growling had stopped_ \- she decided that the coast was clear, and wriggled free of the crawlspace. Once she was out, she got to her feet, brushed cobwebs and an errant spider off of her armor, then turned to face the source of the sound... and stopped in her tracks.

The " _thing_ " - obviously some kind of machine, but utterly unlike any machine she was familiar with - superficially resembled an Elite, with powerful digitigrade legs, a lean waist that tapered upwards into broad shoulders, a hunchbacked stature, and a long neck terminating in a blunt head. But instead of a saurian face with four toothy jaws, there was only an oval crystalline faceplate, behind which whirled countless flecks of red light, and its armor plating wasn't solid, but rather was finely-segmented and colored glossy midnight blue trimmed with copper. At least, it was wherever it hadn't been scorched carbon-black.

What _really_ broke the silhouette, though, was the second pair of arms that rose above the machine's head; it was already _tall_ \- at least eight feet at its crest, just at a glance - but those arms _easily_ breached the eleven-foot mark. Its legs were odd, too; rather than simply ending in two digits like Elite's legs did, the machine's legs split at the knee, with four smaller appendages making up each lower leg assembly.

If her initial impression of the thing had been "Elite," further examination led to an impression that was more along the lines of "Elite and _arachnid_."

It cocked its strange head at her and rattled the spines that rose from its back, derailing her train of thought. With a shake of her own head, Jeanette drew in a breath and exhaled a soft " _Oh_."

Cautiously, she approached the platform where the machine stood. The ONI operatives had employed what looked like heavily-modified Covenant restraints to keep it locked in place, and whenever it strained against the invisible bonds, electricity arced from the cuffs to play over its armor. 

She knew from first-hand observation, though, that those thin little arcs weren't what had damaged it so badly. The operatives would have had to manually crank up the voltage to achieve that - and, from the look of things, they'd _clearly_ been doing so quite often.

"You're different, aren't you?" Jeanette mused quietly as she circled the platform to get a better look. "ONI doesn't like 'different', it breaks their illusion that they control everything..."

It just growled, a guttural metallic sound that she could feel in her chest cavity.

"I'm different, too. See?" She bent her neck and brushed her hair out of the way so it could see the bar code they'd branded her with as a child, then straightened up once more. "Just another one of their little experiments. I don't like them, either, trust me. In fact..."

Jeanette regarded the machine and its restraints very, very carefully for a moment.

"...I can help you, yes? I don't have the key for these, but... I don't _need_ a key..."

In her fascination, she'd almost forgotten the energy dagger still strapped to her wrist - which she deployed with a snap of her arm. It blazed to life, humming and hissing, its blue-white light glinting off of the machine's armor and faceplate.

It bristled and snarled, but Jeanette held her left hand up in a calming gesture.

"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you," she said quietly, "I'm... just... thinking..."

Very slowly, she stepped closer, kneeling down and carefully digging the dagger's tip into the seam of the nearest restraint; it snapped and popped, spitting sparks... and then fell away.

"Ah! Yes!" She breathed, smiling to herself. "This is perfect, now just... hold still a minute..."

She repeated the process three more times, then moved to its other leg. In response, it impatiently pawed at the platform while she cut away the restraints holding its right leg in place. 

Once those were taken care of, she turned her attention to its arms. Those restraints were above her head, and opening them could be risky, but...

...But she did it, anyway, shielding her eyes with her free hand as she stretched up to sear away the locking mechanisms - first on the right, then the left, letting the dead restraints clatter to the floor. The machine shook each arm out, the way she did when one of her own arms was numb from sleeping on it, which she almost thought odd. _Could a machine even feel like that?_

Jeanette had briefly wondered how she was going to open the restraints holding the upper set of arms, since they were much too high for her to reach without _climbing_ on the thing, but it turned out that she needn't have worried, because once she'd freed the lower arms it simply reached up to tear those cuffs off, itself.

"...Well, I suppose that works," she commented, deactivating the blade even as the giant machine stepped past her, off the platform, and started towards the door. "You're welcome."

Despite its great size, the machine moved with surprising grace and quiet as it crossed the room, ignoring her now that it was free. It didn't even glance back as she trailed after it, single-mindedly focused as it was on that exit and freedom.

So _of course_ the three operatives from before chose that moment to return from their break.

Jeanette saw the three men through the shatterproof windows that looked out into the corridor. Saw them shift immediately from casual chatter to visible alarm - and then saw them scramble. Two bolted immediately, shouting unintelligibly into their radios, while the third lunged for the controls on the far side of the door, yanking an emergency switch that closed blast shields over the windows and dropped the door's hydraulic locks.

That machine didn't even slow its pace.

Instead, it raised its upper set of arms and splayed its three-fingered hands wide as its palms began to glow, a dull red that rapidly intensified to bright yellow-white.

Then, as she watched, awestruck, it opened fire, spraying the door with volleys of plasma that perforated the armored surface as easily as if it were paper. A few steps later and it had reached the door, gripping the still-smoldering holes with all four hands before tearing the entire barrier out of its frame and flinging it aside.

The hallway outside was too low for it to stand at its full height, but that didn't stop or even significantly slow it down as it resumed firing its weapons at unseen guards, their shouting and screaming filling the air alongside the sounds of alarms and small arms fire. All their bullets seemed to do was aggravate it, though, as they pinged harmlessly off its armor to bury themselves in the walls and ceiling instead.

Pressing her back against one window's blast shield, Jeanette briefly debated her options.

She could stay put here until the machine - which was obviously a _much_ higher containment priority than she was - had led the guards far enough for her to safely make a break for it. This brought with it the risk of being found and scooped up by a different group of guards on their way to respond to the bigger emergency, however, and while she was certain she could deal with them, she would prefer to avoid contact if possible. After all, she was missing her helmet and the SPI armor she wore was... not particularly durable, and was already uncomfortably dented in several spots.

Her other option was to try to stick close to the machine, and hope that it was feeling generous enough to at least continue to ignore her presence. Its firepower would keep the guards at bay, and as long as she stayed close she would be shielded from the worst of the gunfire. 

_The operatives mentioned an "engine." Maybe it has a ship..._

Maybe it would show her kindness of its own and take her off of this miserable hell-world.

The sounds of fighting were receding, and she could hear voices coming from the opposite end of the corridor - it seemed as if they were going to try to get the machine from behind. Whatever their plan was, she only had moments to make her decision.

Rushing footsteps and harried voices came surging past the wrecked door.

Taking a deep breath, Jeanette made her choice.

With a _snap-hiss_ her dagger blazed to life once more, and she darted into the corridor. The chaos masked the sound of her own footfalls as she rushed up behind the group of guards - _...six, seven, eight; eight would be easy_ \- and swung her weapon in a blinding arc. The nearest guard fell with a gurgling cry, cleaved from shoulder to stomach, and suddenly their organized chaos dissolved into wild disarray as they realized that they were under attack from the rear.

Yanking the blade back, Jeanette leapt into their midst, where they couldn't risk opening fire without hitting one another; several tried, foolishly, to restrain her, but she was a perfect storm of destruction, lightning striking over and over. _She was a Spartan, they'd trained her against Elites and they expected to be able to best her?_

_Fools._

All eight were dead in moments, and _she_ was barely winded.

From elsewhere in the building, she could hear the machine's rampage continuing, and realized that it was quite possibly moving faster than anticipated - and if she didn't hurry, she might miss her best opportunity to escape. Cursing under her breath, she deactivated her blade and stooped to snatch a helmet from the head of one of the fallen guards, jamming it into place over her own head before turning to sprint in the direction that the machine had gone.

Finding it again wasn't difficult, even with the chaos quieting down; there weren't many places for it to go, and the havoc it had wreaked and the bodies it had left in its wake made for an excellent trail to follow.

It had made its way to another wing of the facility, one that opened up into another large chamber, like an aircraft hangar. And what she saw in there made her stop short yet again.

There _was_ a ship - or, rather, what was _left_ of one. 

It looked to be made out of the same materials as the machine itself, in the same colors and with the same segmented, arthropoidal appearance. At some point she thought it must have looked more like some giant ray fish, but now it was missing a significant percentage of its mass - part of the left "wing" had been sheared or blasted away, leaving a gaping hole in the body - and it now sat, partially-disassembled, in the middle of the hangar.

It clearly wasn't going to be flying _anywhere_.

The machine had stopped in front of it, regarding the broken craft with an unreadable face. If Jeanette had had to hazard a guess, though, she would have said that it was _angry_. Its spines flexed and rattled, and the talons on its lower set of hands flashed in the light as it tensed its fingers, betraying _some_ sort of distress.

She stepped forward, and a small piece of debris scraped the floor under the sole of her boot.

In the blink of an eye, it turned and lunged, pinning her to the floor and bringing those wicked claws to her throat. For just a moment, her heart seemed to stop beating, and her thoughts fled - but she didn't have the time to panic. Instead, she scrambled to push the visor of her helmet up with her free hand. "It's all right," she gasped out, "it's just me!"

It hesitated, slowly tilted its head side to side... and finally released her, turning away again to resume whatever it had been doing when she'd arrived.

She just blinked after it as she sat up, rolling her shoulders experimentally to make sure she was still in one piece; luckily, nothing hurt when she moved, though she knew better than to think that she wouldn't be sore later on.

"It's not going to fly, is it?" She asked as she pushed herself to her feet. "You know, there is probably a Prowler outside. Not exactly a proper replacement for your ship, but..."

The machine _hummed_ , seemingly considering what she'd just said.

Then, it slipped into the wreckage, leaving her standing alone, and vaguely annoyed, in the middle of the chamber. Jeanette was almost ready to give up and leave it to its own devices so she could find her own way out - _surely more guards would be incoming, and it would be safer to clear out now, rather than wait any longer_ \- when it returned a few moments later.

It wasn't lost on her that it hadn't returned empty-handed: one hand gripped an object that looked like little more than a giant, lumpy black egg. It looked like it must weigh a considerable amount, but it carried the object as easily as if it weighed nothing at all

It _also_ wasn't lost on her that it was obviously in a greater hurry now than it had been previously, as it loped towards the far wall - which was hardly a wall at all, she noticed, but rather a single heavy overhead door. Halfway there, it primed its plasma weapons, and proceeded to blow the entire middle of said door out, exposing the tarmac beyond.

She didn't need to be prompted to follow it, sprinting out through the gap and into the open air and pouring rain.

Sure enough, there were not one but three Prowlers waiting, and two had their holds open as crews unloaded their contents onto waiting motor carts. Jeanette thought it ridiculous that they were simply carrying on with their menial duties while the situation indoors had gone from "manageably bad" to "catastrophic," but then again ONI had never struck her as particularly cautious. _Sneaky_ , yes. _Underhanded_ , certainly. But _cautious_? No.

Their lack of caution was what had allowed her to free herself, and the machine, and now it would facilitate their escape.

The men and women working the tarmac scattered and fled in terror as the massive machine barreled through, going straight for the nearest open Prowler with the resident Spartan-III hot on its heels. To their credit, the crew remaining aboard the targeted ship did _try_ to close the ramp - but it was much too late for such measures. Barely even slowing its pace, the machine gathered itself to spring in one step and, in the next, _pounced_ , easily clearing the narrowing gap and landing inside with an audible _crash_.

Jeanette's entry was significantly less graceful, as she jumped to catch the edge of the rising ramp, hauling herself inside and clumsily rolling to the floor only a moment before it clanged shut.

* * *

There had been a construct in the ship's systems.

It was gone now.

It had struggled valiantly, but ultimately in vain as Relentless-In-Pursuit had consumed its data stores and torn its code to pieces in search of anything useful. But while there were ample amounts of _interesting_ information, data that would be _useful_ to him was nowhere to be found; these "humans" were clearly cleverer than he'd initially given them credit for. 

He would just have to keep searching the hard way, then.

_System by system, world by world, ship by ship if he had to._

That last thought sent a brief stab of regret through him; he hadn't _wanted_ to destroy his ship, it had been a faithful craft, and had done its singular job very, very well... but it would have been a grievous error to leave it in human hands, clumsy and dull and ignorant as they were.

At least he had managed to extract the most important component - the ship's core, which was currently in the process of fully interfacing with the "Prowler's" systems - before giving the ship its last order. That was all that mattered, in the end, even if he hadn't been able to witness the resulting fireball. He'd dispatched a fair number of humans with his own hands, including the crew of this craft. He'd seen the way the opening of a rift only a hundred meters above that miserable little world's surface had caused a shockwave that flattened everything in its path for kilometers in every direction. He _knew_ his ship had brought the work to completion. That would suffice.

Those humans had paid dearly for their transgressions, and by the time he'd completed his mission...

...No. He stifled that train of thought; there was no point in wasting energy on anger now.

There would be a time and a place for it, later. Once he'd finally located what he was searching for. Until then, he needed to be able to focus, to finish rerouting this new ship's inner workings, and he couldn't do that when his thought processes were being derailed by seething rage and dreams of exacting some proper vengeance.

The Prowler was much bigger than his previous craft had been, and yet fitting himself into its primitive, limited systems was alike to trying to squeeze himself through a slightly-too-narrow gap in a wall - he could manage, but it would require substantial effort and would likely tire him out in the process. On a more positive note, once he and the core had done the tedious work of adapting the ship, it would be much easier to pilot and control it.

And then he could return to his task.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven years later...

_July 2552, planet Reach_

Everything had gone to hell so quickly it had been hard to process.

 _The Covenant was on Reach,_ and had apparently been quietly infiltrating the world for _weeks_. Who knew what they'd been able to uncover in that time.

No point in wasting time worrying, though; what was important _now_ was keeping them from getting their claws on anything else that they might find useful... as well as making them hurt.

And Artemis-B312, current Noble Six, was nothing if not _very, very good_ at making the Covenant hurt.

_"First stage engine burn: Nominal."_

The computerized voice shook her from her reverie, dragging her back to the present. Artemis let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding, and turned her attention back to the controls in front of her.

 _"Stage separation in three... two... one... Stage separation."_ The Sabre quivered as the first stage rockets disengaged and fell away and the newly-unburdened craft leapt forward. _"Second state ignition confirmed."_

Below them, Reach spun lazily on its axis, curtains of aurora shimmering across the atmosphere; somewhere near some distant coastline, a hurricane churned the ocean waters. It all looked so deceptively serene.

And above them... 

Above them was Anchor Nine, which she and Noble Five had just been tasked with defending.

They'd barely even entered the orbital's vicinity when the space around them suddenly filled with projectiles and enemy contacts. Gritting her teeth, Artemis yanked the controls hard to port and spun away from the onslaught, opening fire as she went. Behind her, Jorge grunted and swore as the world briefly turned upside-down.

"Sorry, Old Bear," she apologized even as she brought the fighter around to engage a trio of Seraphs.

"Ey, mind who you're callin' old, pup," he half-growled back; under her helmet, a smile tugged at the corner of Artemis' mouth.

She couldn't afford to let herself be distracted, though: Seraphs were slow and clumsy in atmosphere, but up here at the very edge of space they were deadly-agile. Then again, _so were Sabres_ , and Artemis may not have been the only _friendly_ combatant in the fray, but she was by far the best - as she was all too happy to demonstrate as she whipped through the orbital array, leading the Sabre team in pursuit of their prey. 

The enemy pilots never stood a chance. Some were lucky - Seraph, Banshee, and Phantom fighters erupting in brief, brilliant fireballs that almost certainly killed the pilots instantly - while others found themselves venting air as they spun and hurtled, powerless and out of control, into Reach's atmosphere to burn up like shooting stars.

 _Take it, you bastards,_ she thought venomously as yet another enemy met his end at her hands and she dove straight through the cloud of wreckage, circling back towards the orbital, where the on-board defenses had just finished off the last of the attackers.

It had ended almost as quickly as it had started. She knew she should be grateful for that, it meant that a vital staging area was no longer in danger, but some part of her couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

 _"Bravo-Oh-Two-Niner you are clear to dock, activating marker,"_ Anchor Nine radioed in. 

_"Holland to Bravo-Oh-Two-Niner,"_ now the Colonel cut in, _"Noble Five, you ready to go?"_

"Certainly, Colonel," Jorge replied curtly, and she could hear the soft rattle as he shook his head. "Dunno why 'e's askin' me, you're the one spearheadin' this," he grumbled after closing the radio link.

"Must be a seniority thing," Artemis smirked, stifling the briefest urge to laugh at his long-suffering sigh. For a moment, it was almost like she'd never been gone.

Like ONI had never drafted her into Project: COLD MOON and yanked her away from the only family she'd ever really known. _Kurt and Jorge and their pack of little wolves..._

The memory made her throat tighten up, and she felt the corners of her eyes burning; she'd been swept away so suddenly, she'd never even gotten the chance to say goodbye. Not to Kat, not to Jorge, not to _anyone_. Was it any wonder that her return had gotten such a chilly reception? 

She swallowed past the sudden knot in her throat, focusing instead on bringing the Sabre in for a landing and prepping the cabin for depressurization.

At least they wouldn't be staying long. All they had to do was-

Before she could complete that thought, much less pop the canopy, a brilliant white fireball lit up the skies from thousands of kilometers away, and in the blink of an eye every radio channel was lit up with so much chatter that picking any one thing out was impossible. Artemis rushed to switch off the receiver, cutting out the chaos before craning her neck to try to make out what was going on.

"What the _hell_ was that?!" Jorge was barking into his transceiver, "Colonel? Sitrep?!"

_"We're working on it, Noble Five. Hold tight."_

Artemis squinted, directing her Mjolnir's visual systems to zoom in on the dwindling explosion. It almost looked like...

"Noble Five, Noble Six, you there?" This time it was Carter's voice, coming in over TEAMCOM.

"Noble Six here. We're alive, sir," she replied. "I don't suppose you have any grand insights on what the hell just happened."

_"Yeah. Something came in hot, tore right through that warship like it was made of wet paper. You're my eyes up there, if I give you the object's trajectory can you tell me where - or if - it landed? Holland wants answers as much as the rest of us do."_

"Affirmative."

_"Good. Sending you the numbers now."_

There was a chirp in her earpiece, and then her visor lit up with a stream of numbers and figures that shifted about with her head movements, tracking something she couldn't quite see yet.

"...Give me three minutes and I'll get back to you." She switched from TEAMCOM to address Jorge. "Hang on, we're disengaging!"

"We're wha-" His question was cut off as the Sabre cast off its moorings and dropped away from the dock; Artemis let it fall until its nose cleared the aperture, then brought it around to flare her engines. It lurched slightly, then settled into a smooth glide as she maneuvered it away from Anchor Nine. "...Care to fill me in, Six?"

"Carter wants eyes on the surface. We're looking for an impact site," she forwarded the trajectory information to him. "Whatever it was went right through our target."

Jorge followed the object's path in the direction it had come from, and muttered something under his breath in Hungarian. "Didn't just go _through_ it. Look."

She did so, and felt an odd chill settle into her gut.

Whatever it had been, it had obliterated a full third of the supercarrier, leaving the fore and aft ends wheeling slowly in the middle of a cloud of fine debris as the whole mess sank into Reach's atmosphere.

"What could do something like that?" She breathed, reflexively checking the space beyond for another ship although she knew for a fact that humanity didn't field _anything_ big or powerful enough to vaporize _thirty percent_ of a CSO-class supercarrier. 

_Except nukes._

_And slipspace drives._

Neither of which had been involved here. They would have had to have been detonated _inside_ the supercarrier, and the only people who were endeavoring to do anything like that were herself and Jorge. More to the point, they wouldn't have hit _Reach_ , too.

"Wasn't anything natural, that's for sure," Jorge rumbled. "Ain't a known NRO that travels that fast."

"NRO?"

"'Near-Reach Object.' Most of the ones we know about are small, 'bout fist-sized at the largest, 'n travel maybe sixty, seventy klicks per second."

"...And whatever this was was _much_ bigger and _much_ faster. How big and how fast, do you wager?"

"To cause that kinda damage? Probably Sabre-sized, goin' _at least_ two hundred 'n fifty thousand."

"Kilometers per second?"

"Mmhm."

Artemis felt the chill in her core deepen. No known object traveled that fast. Even the quickest Covenant ship didn't come close.

 _"Six, you copy?"_ Carter's voice made her jump slightly. _"What's the word? Holland said your Sabre left the docks, but you've been awfully quiet."_

"Er, sorry, sir. Just got a bit sidetracked by something, that's all. Triangulating potential impact sites now."

Following the object's trajectory down, she quickly realized that it would most likely have made landfall deep in one of Reach's mountain ranges - the very one that the downed supercarrier was also projected to crash into in short order. _That_ , she knew, could be trouble.

"...Noble Leader, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you're planning on going to the impact site, you're going to be heading right by an actively-developing Covenant crash site, too. They'll probably be crawling all over the area by the time you get there."

_"Noted."_

God, she hated it when he was flippant; she bit her tongue, though, and continued scanning the landscape below. If the projected trajectory was accurate, then the object's angle of entry would take it...

"...There!" She exclaimed, "do you see that?"

"I see it," Jorge replied, confirming her suspicion; "smoke plume, not a very thick one but it's there."

 _"Probably triggered a forest fire on impact. Just our luck."_ Carter's voice was dry. _"Send me the coordinates, Six. Kat and I will go investigate."_

"No offense, sir, but don't you think you should wait for us? You might need the backup."

_"We can handle it, don't worry. I need you and Jorge with the other heavy hitters on the ground and ready to deploy in support of the UNSC in the event that the Covenant organizes a retaliatory strike. Go meet up with Jun and Emile at base camp, we'll catch up as soon as we've done a quick survey of the site."_

Artemis sighed heavily. "Acknowledged. Sending the coordinates now, along with a route that should take you around the worst of the Covie activity."

_"Much obliged. Noble Leader out."_

She just shook her head as she sent the requested data, then slumped back in her seat for a moment with a groan. "Well, at least this mission wasn't a _total_ wash, we were able to do _something_ useful up here."

"Don't sound so disappointed."

"I'm not, not really. I'm actually kind of relieved to not be boarding a damned Covie supercarrier. That would've only ended in disaster, I just know it." She sat up straighter, and brought the Sabre around to bear on their next objective. "Let's just hope our luck holds."

* * *

Taking the route Artemis had suggested meant going over one hundred kilometers out of their way - not that Kat was complaining. Better a slight detour than having to fight through a swarm of angry Covenant for what was probably just a mostly-empty crater. She knew, though, that the Covies would be just as keen as they were on finding what had taken out their supercarrier. Still, a few Zealots and some cannon fodder wouldn't be too troublesome, in the grand scheme of things, just somewhat annoying. 

_It won't be anything we can't handle._

"We're about thirty minutes from contact, and it looks like we're going to have company." Carter's voice came over the comms. "Banshees, five of 'em, coming in hot."

"I see them," she replied, "but it doesn't look like they've seen us yet."

"They will." His tone was as dry as his expression was grim. "Be ready to light 'em up when they do."

"Already on it."

If there was one thing she was genuinely grateful for, it was the ingenuity of rank-and-file UNSC; someone, noting the inadequacy of the standard M370 autocannon - it was powerful, certainly, but terribly inaccurate - had seen fit to strip the M66 Gauss cannons from a handful of damaged Warthogs, and mount them onto several Pelicans.

Including the Pelican she and Carter had commandeered for this recon run, knowing that they were likely to encounter Covenant air support.

"Just get me into the kill zone," she said coolly as she primed the cannons; "use the autocannon to herd them into my line of fire if you have to. I'll make sure none of them make it to the impact site."

If he acknowledged her statement, she didn't notice, already absorbed in drawing a bead on the lead Banshee; Jun she decidedly was not, but that didn't mean she couldn't pick off a target with a sufficiently powerful weapon. And when the reticle flashed green, that was exactly what she did, unloading three rounds into the side of the enemy craft and sending parts of it spinning away in a bright yellow fireball. Almost immediately, the rest of the formation scrambled to confront their attacker.

"I think they've seen us," Kat smirked crookedly; Carter just sighed, pushing the Pelican into a sharp turn to avoid a barrage of incoming fire.

"Less quipping, more killing, Kat."

"Aye-aye, sir."

Nudging the Pelican's nose down, Carter dove into the smoke-filled valley below, and the Banshees followed with no hesitation. One, perhaps too eager for a kill, clipped the top of one of the towering pines and briefly struggled to regain control; his foolishness slowed him down and spelled his end, as she quickly drew a bead on his aircraft and dropped him with two rounds through the canopy. Plasma rounds flared past them, splintering tree trunks into smoldering shrapnel that peppered harmlessly against the outer hull. Swearing to herself, Kat struggled to lock on to the closest pursuer.

Her safety harness creaked in protest as the Pelican rolled onto its side to skim through a gap in the trees, with the remaining three Banshees in hot pursuit.

Once more, the reticle flashed green. _Gotcha._

This time, all she needed was one round, a lucky shot that pierced through the Banshee dead-center and turned its pilot into a fine blue mist. It dropped like a rock, disappearing into the smoke.

_Three down, two to go._

Unfortunately, the loss of three of their comrades only seemed to make the remaining two pilots less cautious.

Something bright and sickly green streaked past the cockpit, vaporizing another tree directly ahead of them in a ball of neon fire.

" _Shit_!" Carter pulled up hard, the whole aircraft groaning under the exertion. "Guess they've realized that we mean business-!"

"Took them long enough!" Kat grunted as they rolled to avoid another round of fuel rods. "I can't get a lock with all these acrobatics!"

"Neither can they!"

Gritting her teeth, Kat squinted through the sights as Carter dropped back down into the smoke once more, leading the Banshees into the burning forest. Trying to keep a steady bead was borderline-impossible, but...

Following the lead Banshee's trajectory, she aimed a dozen or so meters in front of his nose, and stitched the air with a line of slugs. Six ended up perforating his hull - overkill, but better than the alternative - and another two nicked his comrade's wing. The first Banshee smashed headlong into the forest floor, while the second spun out of control.

But not before firing off another round of fuel rods.

The impact knocked the breath out of her lungs, and the sudden wild spin made her vision go black for a moment. Somewhere far away, she could hear Carter fighting with the controls, desperately trying to right the Pelican.

Then the ground rose up to meet them.

Kat managed to remember to _lock her armor_ only a second before they crashed.

She still blacked out, regardless.

*******

"Hey. Come on, Spartan, you need to get back on your feet."

Groaning, Kat slowly rolled her head to the side; it took her a long moment to realize that she was sitting propped up against something solid, and her armor was no longer locked up.

"Fffffucking hell, Carter," she choked out, "you couldn't've... brought the damned thing down a little more gently...?"

"I tried, give me a little credit. It's just a little bit hard to land only half a Pelican." He snorted softly, resting a hand on her shoulder. "What's your status?"

"I feel like I was stepped on by a Hunter." Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, she gave her head a bit of a shake and then tried to recollect her wits. "Nothing's broken, at least. Give me a minute and I'll be able to walk without falling back over."

"I can give you maybe thirty seconds." His voice was wry. "We've still got a bit of ground to cover and who knows if any of those Banshee pilots bothered to call for backup."

Kat just let her head fall back with a defeated sigh. "All right, fine, I'm up, I'm up. Even if I don't necessarily want to be."

Carter just laughed once, rising to his feet and holding a hand out to help her to her own. She gladly took it, and he hauled her up. They lingered just long enough to scour the wreck for anything that might be useful - a few firearms, some ammo and medkits, and not much else - before setting off for their destination at a brisk trot.

Even at the relatively steady pace they kept, rough and sometimes treacherous terrain meant that the impact site was still over an hour away.

At least they hadn't run into more Covenant; clearly, _they_ had bigger problems to deal with.

Both Spartans were slightly winded by the time they reached the foot of the mountain - half a mountain, now - where the unknown object had made landfall. Whatever it had been, the force of its landing had sheared off a significant portion of the rock face, resulting in a massive landslide as well as forest fires, and now they were going to have to pick their way up a steep gravel slope... while hoping that the thing hadn't been buried beneath it.

"Mind your step, don't want to trigger a rockslide," Carter said as he carefully set foot on the uncertain surface.

"You don't have to tell me twice." 

Kat followed in his tracks, a few steps behind, and they slowly made their way up the rocky, shifting path.

The minutes crept by as they picked their way onward, scanning their surroundings for anything that might be a clue as to what had happened. The ascent felt like it took hours, though realistically it could have been more than thirty minutes before Carter's footfalls took on a hollow, metallic sound.

They both froze. 

"Did you-" Kat started to speak, but almost immediately found herself deafened by a piercing electronic wail. With a sharp hiss of pain, she cut the comm and wrenched her helmet off to press the heel of her hand to her temple. "What the hell-?!"

Steps away, Carter was doing the same, shaking his head.

"...Sounds like we found our bogey," he winced, scuffing at the gravel and dust underfoot to reveal something smooth underneath.

Something that looked like hull plating.

Frowning slightly, Kat followed suit, clearing away another swath of debris. The surface underfoot was shockingly intact, considering what it had just gone through only hours prior; the blue-black surface was filthy, but otherwise barely marred, and more careful exploration showed that it was arranged in broad, overlapping copper-trimmed plates.

"What do you make of it, Kat?"

"Well, it doesn't look Covenant," she answered, "I've never seen anything like this before."

"Think it might be ONI? Something top-secret?"

"Hm, doubtful."

"So... what, then?"

"...I don't know."

She took another tentative step forward.

And the ship - _whatever_ it was - shifted underfoot.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she quickly jammed her helmet back on, Carter doing the same as the surface they were standing on began first to spin, slowly, lazily... and then to _slide_. They dropped to their knees when it violently lurched a few meters, slowed, lurched again, then plunged downwards.

With the two of them still clinging to its armored back, the object spun-slid down the slope, coasting over the top of the smaller, denser debris below. 

Its forward momentum was abruptly halted several seconds later, as it came to rest against a boulder half its size near the treeline, and both Spartans were sent tumbling head-over-heels to land sprawling in the rocks.

Once again, she had the wind knocked out of her, and for a moment she idly wondered just how many times that could happen before serious damage was done. There was no point in wasting too much time on the thought, though, and she shakily pushed herself to her knees. 

"Carter?"

She'd briefly forgotten what had happened the last time she'd tried to talk over comms, and immediately regretted that when the same wailing electronic screech came howling over her earpiece. Swearing under her breath, she cut the link and pulled off the helmet once more - at least there didn't seem to be a danger of anything _else_ crashing as she firmly set it on the ground by her knees.

"Carter!"

There was a groan nearby, followed by a wavering voice. "Accounted for."

Kat just nodded and turned her attention back towards their bogey.

When it had come to rest against the boulder, its ventral side had been exposed, revealing more damage than their initial explorations had led her to suspect. She'd almost hoped that it would be intact enough to fly back to base came, assuming she could even understand the controls, but it was clear now that this ship was anything _but_ flightworthy. The interior was pitch-dark, making her think that whatever powered it had been knocked offline, and cabling and wires spilled out of the gaping hole in its belly, trailing in the gravel.

...Not _just_ cables and wires, either.

Frowning, she rose to her feet and moved closer for a better look.

_Is that an arm?_

"What... the hell... is that..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Artemis-B312 belongs to the illustrious WinterXAssassin <3)


End file.
